


Never Stop Smiling

by UglyJackal



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, just two dads, they love each other very much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 18:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16938516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/UglyJackal
Summary: It wasn’t often that Cid and Jack got time to themselves.





	Never Stop Smiling

**Author's Note:**

> it's christmassy

It wasn’t often that Cid and Jack got time to themselves. What with Jack’s job as Warrior of Light, his work was never finished, and Cid was often building a new something or other.  So when they stole a moment away from the other’s busy lives to just  _ be _ , it was treasured like a sacred artefact.

They had snuck into a side street in Camp Dragonhead. Jack had his large alpine coat on to shield against the persistent cold that hovered around in Coerthas, while Cid had, for once, an equally heavy coat on that looked like he had stolen it from a fisherman’s guild in Limsa Lominsa. Cid leaned into his boyfriend, as they backed against a wall, giggling like schoolgirls.

‘They almost had us,’ he whispered, lips stretched with glee as he pressed his forehead to the taller man’s neck, breathing heavily to catch his breath.

‘Yeah…’ Jack panted, ‘god… I’m too old to be running around like a loveworn teenager. Look at the wrinkles around my eyes, I’m no kitten.’

The other laughed. ‘Oh, my dear,’ he said, ‘those wrinkles are only from your delightful laughter.’

The miqo’te grinned, baring his pinprick fangs at his boyfriend. ‘Ah, yes, because I’ve had plenty of cause to do so over the years,’ he drawled.

And, oh, how Cid fell. That smile, so rare in its genuinity, that it could have been a tanzanite gemstone, so beautiful that it could have been a field of sweeping golden wheat fields. And it reminded Cid of everything about Jack that he had fallen in love with; the humour, the biting wit, the icy cold attitude, the confidence to speak his mind (that he had developed over the years as his patience slowly dribbled out of his palms like water), and the quiet vulnerability that appeared at night in gasping breaths and salted tears, in shaking hands and whipping tails, in tight-gripped hugs and chewed lips that bled.

‘Please never stop smiling.’ The words fell out of Cid’s mouth before he could catch them, and though his cheeks flamed, he wasn’t sorry that he had spoken his mind.

Jack chuckled. A deep, throaty chuckle that the engineer adored. One that would rumble deep down in his chest, like a growl from the bottom of a canyon, like the tight grip of a hand in his, like the tender lips latched onto his neck. One that wasn’t let out too often, unless he was round his friends.

Everything of genuine pleasure was always so rare with Jack. And Cid was the eager archaeologist that was prepared to dig deep to find the beating heart, and he was even more prepared to look after whatever he found, to dust it off, to fill any cracks, to lay it on the softest cushion that he had, and to allow it to heal.

‘I’ll do my best, Cid,’ he said, a smile crafted of longing written on his face, ‘though it can be difficult sometimes… as you well know.’

‘I do know,’ the mechanic replied, ‘and I’m so proud of you for even making it this far without quitting. A lesser man would have probably gone mad by now.’

Jack shrugged. ‘We have to deal with these things, don’t we?’ he said. ‘Can’t just chuck in the towel whenever it gets a little too much. Otherwise nothing would get done, now would it?’

Cid had to hold his tongue from repeating how proud he was of his boyfriend. It was something that he said time and again and would continue to keep saying until his dying breath. And he could say it until he was blue in the face, but whether Jack believed him was another matter entirely. 

But something that Jack would likely never say to Cid was that he was a desert, dry and unforgiving, Cid was an ocean, calm and comforting, and it was the motion that Jack needed, the rocking that would cradle him and lull him. And without Cid, Jack was broken, and left to thirst out in the heat. In the heat of battle, the heat of debate, the heat of his own desperate loneliness.

Cid kept him calm, kept him sane, kept him happy. And even with the love and compassion of his friends, he couldn’t shake the feeling that all he did was annoy them with his fear, with his sadness, with his pain. With Cid, it was so easy; the caresses and the hugs at night, the lingering comfort in a kiss and the steady presence that simply  _ was _ , all came as part of their relationship, part of their mutual love and respect for each other.

And was there a reason? No, but not everything needed a  _ why _ ? Not everything needed an explanation or a guide. Sometimes, things just didn’t have to make sense, so long as they worked. And they worked like a well-oiled machine.

Jack smiled again, impossibly wider than he had done before. He leaned forward and kissed Cid gently on the forehead, just below his goggles, just below where they concealed his third eye. ‘How I adore you,’ he mumbled, so quietly that Cid almost didn’t hear.

But he did. ‘Happy holidays, my beloved,’ Cid said, a smile lost to love melting onto his face like an elegant dance as he raised a hand to cup Jack’s chin.

‘And to you, my darling,’ the miqo’te chuckled in return, his own face alight with complete adoration, as Cid pulled his face down to meet their lips.


End file.
